Kinetica Artfair

Titia Ex

Flower from the Universe

A gigantic light flower, seemingly floating above the surface, with a heart modelled on a brain cell, encircled by a garland of graceful stems. A circle of seven pods lies under the heart and hidden within: the seed of movement.

Walking around the artwork causes the visitor to set off a wave of moving colours. The flower records the surrounding colours and transfers these to the ‘petals’ into which the garland is divided. The reflected colours gradually merge on the petals’ edges. The brain cell at the heart has illuminated offshoots that match or contrast with the colours in the garland.

The installation, which has been exhibited at various locations, including a pond in a botanical garden, challenges a diverse public to be drawn in by the transient quality of chance in the colours and spurs people into mingling with other passers-by to actively collaborate, play and blend into their environment.

Titia Ex

The most conspicuous material in Ex’s work is light. Light has a huge symbolic significance with references to happiness, spirituality and enlightenment and at the same time to the triviality of the modern consumer society (neon!). Light not only conveys the dynamics of a space, but also the tranquillity. It is a quest to find the rhythm - people in motion, contemplative or en route somewhere else - and how to then give this rhythm a poetic echo. Titia Ex’s work, which can be seen in public spaces, on plazas and in buildings, enters into a relationship with the local environment. The content of the artwork is then determined by the history of the site, the present use of the space and the users for whom the space is intended.

In the case of Flower from the Universe this relationship is explicitly interactive.